A pre-project has been used to develope the comprehensive program with support from the Barents Health Program. A steering group is established and the program is developed as an activity under the Norwegian National Centre of Rural Medicine (NCRM) at UiT with Svein Steinert as responsible person. Two tutors were appointed in both Norway and Russia, and the first 8 colleagues in each county were selected in autumn 2008 (here all participants of all years listed)

Norwegian participants:
May-Brith Lund MD                    Svein Steinert MD
Peter Prydz MD                          Anton Giever MD
Oleg Siderenkov MD

Russian participants
Natalia Romanova MD              Elena Alexandrovna MD
Dmitriy Bakhtin MD                    Marina Bakurovna MD
Inga Aniskovna MD                   Elena Lobanova MD
Olga Fedulova MD                    Yuriy Pankov MD
Raylya Lasynova MD                Natalya Panasyuk MD
Irina Kudryavtseva MD              Tatjana Baeva MD
Nicolaj Vojtovich MD                 Svetlana Fesyko MD
Nina Sukhikh MD                      Elena Andreeva MD
Alexei Nikitin MD                       Elena Zhuk MD
Andrey Evseev MD                   Irina Komarova MD
Svetlana Zharavina MD            Natalya Muratkina MD
Elenea Zinina MD                     Galina Rusanova MD
Tatjana Baeva MD                    Elena Dolotova MD
Anton Khismatulllin MD

The formal program started in March 2009. A two years education program was created, leading up to a formal accreditation of the 8 x 2 colleagues in June 2011. An important part of the GP trainee contracts was to be tutors for new groups of Russian colleagues from 2011/2012- phase I and Phase II